Kych Minemoto Left the Stage Because It Paid Too Little. A ₱1,000 Bar Play Brought Him Back.
At three on a Saturday afternoon, Lust Entertainment Bar in Quezon City feels nothing like a bar. The neon is off duty and the regulars won’t arrive until well past midnight. For a little over an hour, the room belonged to Naririnig N’yo Ba Ako?, Ogie Diaz’s first bar play, and to Kych Minemoto, who was back on a stage for the first time in years. “Sobrang namiss ko yung feeling na andun ka sa moment na yun,” he told us after the show. What he missed was being in the moment and staying there. On a stage, he said, “isang oras kang andun mahigit,” an hour or more without a break, where screen work comes a scene at a time. “Nakaka-fulfill ng artistry as an actor.” It was only the play’s second performance. Since opening night, the show has found its footing. The jokes landed closer together, the cast seemed looser, and the audience laughed and called back more freely than the opening crowd had. Some of that comes from new ad-libs and some …
